Monday, 5 January 2009

A land mine victim carves a wooden Apsara at the Cambodian Disabled People’s Organization at Wat Than, Phnom Penh.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Vong Sokheng Monday, 05 January 2009

Despite strong government commitment to ensuring rights of disabled citizens, in reality life remains difficult for many who are forced to scrape a living on the fringes of society

NGIN Saorath presides over a staff two-dozen strong in his Phnom Penh office, but his memories of years of poverty, social isolation and public humiliation as a result of his disability have not faded.

Now the director of a local NGO, the Cambodian Disabled People's Organization (CDPO), the 34-year-old has himself been unable to walk since he was a child.

"I had polio during the Pol Pot years," he explained. "I was treated with local medicine by a traditional doctor. But he was killed and after three years without treatment, I became disabled."

Throughout most of the 1990s, Ngin Saroth was one of the hundreds of thousands of disabled Cambodians whose condition prevented them from finding employment.

"After I graduated from high school in 1990, I applied for jobs as a lawyer and teacher, but was rejected because of my disability," he said. "I was shocked when looking through job announcements to see some requiring a full body. I am disabled but my brain is not."

But in 1997, he was given a low-level position with the Cambodian Disabled People's Organisation, and after working his way up the ranks, he became its director in 2005 - the same year he was married.

The timing, he says, was no coincidence, as his professional success helped him prove a respectable husband and reliable provider. His family now also includes two children.

While he says his fortunes would be difficult to replicate for the nearly 550,000 disabled people across the country, he believes legislation to offer them greater support from the state is essential to protect one of the country's most vulnerable groups.

Say no to marginalisation

"Because of the lack of attention paid to disabled people, it is easy for them to fall into crime, become drug addicts and beggars. We are far more vulnerable," Ngin Saorath said.

His organization provides a network for nearly 20,000 disabled persons to help them assert their rights, participate in society and combat the social stigmas Cambodian society places on them.

Buddhist precepts do not make life easier for disabled Cambodians. Those afflicted often face tremendous guilt, as their condition can be associated with sins from a past life.

Even Ngin Saorath says he "used to wonder if this all came about because I had committed a bad deed".

For Theary Seng, president of the Center for Social Development, "the stigma violates a basic human right by blaming people for what they cannot control".

Since they face discrimination at schools, disabled people tend to have far lower levels of education compared with the general population and rely heavily on food and training assistance from foreign aid groups, Ngin Saorath said.

He said that even today the government and civil society have made little to no effort to accommodate disabled people in education, the workplace or health services.

"We need job opportunities. We don't want to be (temporarily) pleased with a gift and then left jobless the rest of our lives," he added.

"Disabled people can be leaders, civil servants, cleaners, receptionists and many other kinds of workers. If we are provided equal opportunity, we can participate in the country's economic and social development. The voice of disabled people should be integrated into society."

Searching for US support

In 2007, the government signed a UN convention in Washington pledging to protect the rights of disabled people but has not yet passed a domestic bill that is in draft form.

In 1999, following pressure from domestic and international NGOs, the government drafted the Law on the Rights of People with Disabilities. It has since sat in draft form in various government offices for nearly a decade.

According to the draft law, the purpose of the legislation is to "strengthen and protect the rights and interests of people with disabilities, and to... guarantee their full and equal participation in all activities in society".

In concrete terms, the law would sanction a minimum number of jobs in the private and public sector for applicants with physical and mental disabilities".

While Ngin Saorath thinks the proposed domestic law is not up to the standard of the UN convention in its depth, he said it is an "acceptable" start.

The law is scheduled to be addressed by the National Assembly, and the Labour Ministry has promised to push for its adoption within the year.

While Cheam Yeap, a senior lawmaker from the ruling Cambodian People's Party and head of the National Assembly committee that reviews all new proposed legislation, said he had not yet seen a copy of the law, he insisted he would support passing the bill.

"When it is adopted by the National Assembly, this law can help protect the interests of disabled people and help improve their quality of life," he said.

The government acknowledges that decades of civil conflict have left the Kingdom with a higher-than-average ratio of disability. While this has allowed the Kingdom to shine in some areas - for example, the Cambodian disabled volleyball team is ranked No 3 in the world - it puts a significant burden on the state to ensure disabled Cambodians receive the same entitlements as able-bodied citizens.

The government maintains it is up for the task. At the UN's 16th annual International Day of Disabled People earlier this month, government officials insisted the country would not turn its back on afflicted Cambodians.

"We have never forgotten disabled people," Ith Sam Heng, minister of social affairs, said, adding that the CPP-led government had renewed its commitment to promoting the rights of disabled people in Cambodian society.

Ith Sam Heng said that years of war had left almost two percent of Cambodian people disabled. But even after a decade of peace, the percentage of the population afflicted by a disability was still rising, he added.

LIVING WITH POLIO IN CAMBODIA: CHHUN SOPHEAP’S STORY

Born with polio – a disease that is often rampant in post-conflict societies but can easily be prevented with immunisation programs – 37-year-old Chhun Sopheap lost the use of both his legs as a child. He has scraped together a living over the years by selling books to tourists in front of the Royal Palace and the National Museum. He used to sell books near Phnom Penh’s Central Market but was forced to leave, he said, because security guards there harassed him. Holding down regular employment is impossible because of his condition, he said, adding that he had got used to social exclusion as a way of life. “It’s easy for me to be disappointed with myself. Security guards and police are always pushing me away and insulting me. It’s hurtful, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said.

Patients at the Battambang Drug Rehabilitation Center, where a recent increase in admissions is straining staff.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by May Titthara and Eleanor Ainge Roy Monday, 05 January 2009

A recent increase in admissions, from the usual 50 a month to 70, is straining the Kingdom’s second-largest drug rehab centre, which receives little support from NGOs or the govt

BATTAMBANG

THE Battambang Drug Rehabilitation Center - the Kingdom's second-largest facility - has seen an increase in admissions since June and is struggling to cope with the extra patients, who require 24-hour care during the withdrawl stage of treatment.

Orn Chris Sao Mundal, deputy director of Military Police in Battambang and director of the centre, said the problem is being compounded by the rising cost of food in the market and a lack of NGO support.

"Our budget is not big enough to adequately provide for their living. Staples such as education, medicine and materials for exercise are all being compromised," he said.

The Battambang Drug Rehabilitation Center currently houses 883 patients, but over the last few months admissions have increased. The centre usually receives about 50 drug abusers a month, but this has jumped to 70. The majority of the patients are aged between 18 and 34.

Orn Chris Sao Mundal said he didn't know the exact cause of the spike but said he suspected it was driven by changing demographics of the workforce. "Cambodian migrant workers on the border with Thailand who are abusing drugs are on the rise. They work long, hard days and they use drugs to give them extra energy," he said.

Who foots the bill?

Families of patients at the rehabilitation centre are typically required to contribute 30,000 riels (US$7.35) per month to the care of their relations. However, if a family is too poor to contribute, staff members are forced to dip into their own rice rations. When things are very tight, the Cambodian Red Cross provides assistance, but this will only last for a maximum of a few months.

The centre generally houses patients for three months of treatment, but in special cases this can be extended to six months, and sometimes even a year.

Orn Chris Sao Mundal claims that only 9 percent of patients from his centre relapse, and this is uniformly because they did not finish the whole three months of treatment.

The centre's three-step program of treatment differs from other facilities in the country. In the first stage, patients must live and work inside the compound. During the second stage, they must live inside the compound but are allowed to work outside. In the third stage, they return to their homes. The second stage is the most crucial, as it is a chance for users to access drugs again, and for workers at the centre to stop them if they see such behaviour.

Kem Bory, 28, has been in the centre for one year and used to be addicated to methamphetamine."When I needed money [for drugs], I used to steal it from my parents. That is why I have to stay here now. I have to be good to my parents. I tainted their honour and I wasted my time."

BORN AGAIN?After four days out of prison, Born Samnang went to the New Life Church in Phnom Penh to become a Christian, like his father. “I brought my son to the church on Sunday to let him become a Christian and be born again like me,” Bo Boeun, 59, said.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Chrann Chamroeun and Thomas Gam Nielsen Monday, 05 January 2009

Despite concerns about the security of the newly-released pair, one suspect, Sok Sam Oeun, says his innocence will keep him safe

FOUR days after a Supreme Court decision sent the controversial case of union leader Chea Vichea's assassination back to the Appeal Court for reinvestigation, the two suspects - temporarily released - say they are not fearful for their safety.

"I am not afraid because I am innocent and not a bad person," Takeo native Sok Sam Oeun said, adding that he now hoped the charges against him and fellow suspect Born Samnang would be dropped.

The pair have languished in Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison since they were arrested a week after the 2004 slaying of Free Trade Union leader Chea Vichea. Local and international rights groups have persistently called for the release of the two suspects, saying that there is no evidence connecting them to the killing.

Family members say they remain concerned about their newly liberated relatives as they settle into a life outside prison.

" I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I AM INNOCENT AND NOT A BAD PERSON. "

"I contacted Licadho to keep an eye on my son because I am concerned and the accusations against him are not lifted yet," said Ngoun Kimsry, the mother of Born Samnang.

Any concerns?

Local legal NGO the Cambodian Defenders Project, which has provided lawyers for the two men, said they had not heard of threats against them.

"There is no specific law about protection procedures for persons on [temporary release], but it is the state's obligation to protect all its citizens," said the NGO's director, Sok Sam Oeun - who is not related to the suspect - adding that if any threats against the suspects are reported, the state must find a way to protect them.

"If Sok Sam Oeun and Born Samnang feel any threat, they should contact local police or a rights organisation," he added.

But Thun Saray, director of local rights group Adhoc, said that public pressure to find the "real suspects" in the murder case of union leader Chea Vichea could lead to a fresh wave of legal punishment for the pair.

"The government might feel embarrassed when the pressure to take action in the case grows, and that might lead to the Appeal Court punishing the two suspects [currently] out of prison again as a response to the public demands," he said.

Children show off their breakdancing moves in the park at Phnom Penh's Wat Phnom last week. The park, which has swings, slides and climbing frames, is one of the few places in the capital where children can play for free. Consequently, it is often packed over the weekends with hundreds of children jostling for a go on the slide.

Teruo Jinnai, the UN resident coordinator, is quoted in your story "UN pledges continued support for Cambodia" [December 22] as saying that after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the UN provided Cambodia with US$700 million in emergency relief.

Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I seem to recall that in 1979 and throughout the 1980s, the KR held Cambodia's UN seat, and for that reason UN agencies could not or would not deal with Cambodia's real government, only Unicef being a partial exception.

I also recall it being common knowledge in the 1980s that most UN "assistance" for Cambodia was provided to the border camps, which were under the control of the KR or its allies, and that the UN usually simply handed over these supplies, leaving it to the KR to decide how to distribute them. I am sure that those supplies enabled the survival of some innocent refugees who would otherwise have starved, but they were also a significant contribution to the KR's ability to continue fighting.

According to Eva Mysliwiec's pamphlet Punishing the Poor, in 1986 UN aid to the border camps totalled $150 per person, while for persons inside the country it was $1.50 per person.

However, I have not been able to find precise figures on the distribution of UN funding in other years; it may not always have been a ratio of 100 to 1 in favor of areas under KR control. Perhaps Mr Jinnai could look into UN records on the dispersal of the $700 million and inform the Cambodian public, who can then judge how much gratitude they owe.

Dear Editor,In spite of the letter "Lies, Damn Lies and the environment statistics" [in the December 19 edition of The Phnom Penh Post], I am thankful that you printed the article by Bjorn Lomborg [in the December 15 edition of the Post].

Of course, people are going to react as global warming has become more like a religion. Here is an excellent new report on the rising number of sceptical scientists:

May Doeun was arrested by police on Tuesday after he stabbed his wife on her thigh with a knife because she shouted at him to stop destroying kitchen utensils when he was drunk. The couple lives in Prek Takov village and commune, Khsach Kandal district, Kandal province.

KAMPUCHEA THMEY

MAN ARRESTED FOR SHOWING SEX MOVIES

The owner of a cafe that regularly shows sex movies was arrested by the police on December 31, and his shop was closed down. All his movies and video equipment were confiscated. The arrested man was Phum Saorith, 42, of Battambang province. The police said they had taken action against this cafe once already and the owner had promised to stop, but had not done so. He was sent to the provincial court on Friday.KOH SANTEPHEAP

200 COMPUTERS DESTROYED IN FIRE

A fire Friday in the Thaisan computer store on Kampuchea Krom Boulevard in Phnom Penh destroyed 200 computers but caused no human injuries. The store belongs to Chin Kim San, who did not know how the fire started.RASMEY KAMPUCHEA

WOMAN KILLS HUSBAND WITH HOE

Key Dun, 68, died Saturday morning in hospital after he had been hit with a hoe by his wife on January 1 in Trapaing Thom village, Svay Rieng province. The man was drunk and started arguing with his wife Ung Chhan, 65, who was doing garden work. During the argument, the victim hit the suspect, who then used the hoe to protect herself, fatally injuring her husband.

RASMEY KAMPUCHEA

AMBULANCE INJURES WOMAN IN CRASH

An ambulance from the private clinic Pha Sokhapheap ran into a motorbike driven by Sao Vibol, 23, at a highway traffic circle near Svay Rieng's education office, injuring the woman. The ambulance was going about 80 kilometres per hour, racing to pick up victims of an accident. The police took both the ambulance and the motorbike to the police station to wait for settlement. RASMEY KAMPUCHEA

DRUNKEN DRIVER HITS FOUR PEOPLE

According to the police, a Mercedes driven by a drunken driver hit a motorbike from behind on Sihanouk Boulevard in Phnom Penh on Saturday. The motorbike was carrying four people. The driver managed to escape after he crashed into a fence, abandoning his vehicle, which stuck to the fence. The police did not know the victims' status.RASMEY KAMPUCHEA

Some 2.1 million tourists visited Cambodia last year, marking an 6.0 percent rise over 2007 but falling short of the government's target of 2.3 million visitors, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said Sunday, citing the global financial crisis and ongoing political turmoil in Thailand - a major tourist gateway to Cambodia - as reasons for the slowdown. Still, he said the Kingdom's arrival figures were likely to increase by at least 5.0 percent this year. "We are targeting tourists from countries not [badly] affected by the economic downturn," he told the Post. Cambodia had hoped to see 2.3 million arrivals this year, Thong Khon said. He had said earlier that the Kingdom would try to attract more Chinese and East Asian visitors to offset the decline in tourists from Western countries.

President of the opposition Human Rights Party, Kem Sokha, said he was denied access to Preah Vihear temple by military leaders there because of political discrimination. "I arrived at the foot of the mountain, and when I asked permission to provide gifts to the soldiers, I was not allowed. This kind of political discrimination is regrettable. The soldiers belong to the nation, not one political party," he said. The highest-ranking field commander in Preah Vihear, Srey Deuk, said HRP officials were not allowed to enter the temple compound because the road leading to it was closed due to "problems with Thai officials over repairing it," he added. "It is their right to distribute gifts, but, in any case, the soldiers do not want gifts from HRP. They know it is the opposition party."

The premier will visit Qatar, Kuwait and other countries in the region after Jan. 10 in order to strengthen the kingdom's ties with them, he added.

In April 2008, while Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, visited Cambodia, the two countries signed an agreement to establish their diplomatic relationship.

During the premier's visit, Qatar also agreed with Cambodia's requests to help train oil and gas experts, allow Cambodian labor force to work in Qatar, bring in more investments, start direct flight from Doha of Qatar to Cambodia, strengthen cooperation in the fields of gas production and mine clearance, and export of rice products from Cambodia to Qatar.

In August 2008, while Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah visited Cambodia, both countries signed five cooperation agreements in the fields of economy, trade, investment, foreign affairs and civil aviation.

Under the agreements, Kuwait will help Cambodia develop human resources for oil and gas exploration, provide concession loans with low interest rate for Cambodia to build rural infrastructures, water irrigation system and roads, as well as to invest in the agricultural sector of Cambodia and buy agricultural products from the kingdom.

Barack Obama’s presidency marks a triumph over the legacy of slavery, so it would be particularly meaningful if he led a new abolitionist movement against 21st-century slavery — like the trafficking of girls into brothels.

Anyone who thinks it is hyperbole to describe sex trafficking as slavery should look at the maimed face of a teenage girl, Long Pross.

Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.

Yes, I know it’s hard to read this. But it’s infinitely more painful for Pross to recount the humiliations she suffered, yet she summoned the strength to do so — and to appear in a video posted online with this column — because she wants people to understand how brutal sex trafficking can be.

Pross was 13 and hadn’t even had her first period when a young woman kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh. The brothel owner, a woman as is typical, beat Pross and tortured her with electric current until finally the girl acquiesced.

She was kept locked deep inside the brothel, her hands tied behind her back at all times except when with customers.

Brothel owners can charge large sums for sex with a virgin, and like many girls, Pross was painfully stitched up so she could be resold as a virgin. In all, the brothel owner sold her virginity four times.

Pross paid savagely each time she let a potential customer slip away after looking her over.

“I was beaten every day, sometimes two or three times a day,” she said, adding that she was sometimes also subjected to electric shocks twice in the same day.

The business model of forced prostitution is remarkably similar from Pakistan to Vietnam — and, sometimes, in the United States as well. Pimps use violence, humiliation and narcotics to shatter girls’ self-esteem and terrorize them into unquestioning, instantaneous obedience.

One girl working with Pross was beaten to death after she tried to escape. The brothels figure that occasional losses to torture are more than made up by the increased productivity of the remaining inventory.

After my last column, I heard from skeptical readers doubting that conditions are truly so abusive. It’s true that prostitutes work voluntarily in many brothels in Cambodia and elsewhere. But there are also many brothels where teenage girls are slave laborers.

Young girls and foreigners without legal papers are particularly vulnerable. In Thailand’s brothels, for example, Thai girls usually work voluntarily, while Burmese and Cambodian girls are regularly imprisoned. The career trajectory is often for a girl in her early teens to be trafficked into prostitution by force, but eventually to resign herself and stay in the brothel even when she is given the freedom to leave. In my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, I respond to the skeptics and offer some ideas for readers who want to help.

Pross herself was never paid, and she had no right to insist on condoms (she has not yet been tested for HIV, because the results might be too much for her fragile emotional state). Twice she became pregnant and was subjected to crude abortions.

The second abortion left Pross in great pain, and she pleaded with her owner for time to recuperate. “I was begging, hanging on to her feet, and asking for rest,” Pross remembered. “She got mad.”

That’s when the woman gouged out Pross’s right eye with a piece of metal. At that point in telling her story, Pross broke down and we had to suspend the interview.

Pross’s eye grew infected and monstrous, spraying blood and pus on customers, she later recounted. The owner discarded her, and she is now recuperating with the help of Sina Vann, the young woman I wrote about in my last column.

Sina was herself rescued by Somaly Mam, a trafficking survivor who started the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia to fight sexual slavery. The foundation is working with Dr. Jim Gollogly of the Children’s Surgical Center in Cambodia to get Pross a glass eye.

“A year from now, she should look pretty good,” said Dr. Gollogly, who is providing her with free medical care.

So Somaly saved Sina, and now Sina is saving Pross. Someday, perhaps Pross will help another survivor, if the rest of us can help sustain them.

The Obama administration will have a new tool to fight traffickers: the Wilberforce Act, just passed by Congress, which strengthens sanctions on countries that wink at sex slavery. Much will depend on whether Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton see trafficking as a priority.

There would be powerful symbolism in an African-American president reminding the world that the war on slavery isn’t yet over, and helping lead the 21st-century abolitionist movement.

The beginning of a new year always challenges us - to look back, and to look ahead. In both cases we may gain some orientation. We know, more or less, what happened – but do we understand why? Are we satisfied with what we know? What do we like to continue, and what to change?

Or do we try to look more into the future than into the past? Looking forward to 2009 – but is it with fear, or with hope? May be we have our own clear plans what to do – but will we be ale to make things work out, because many others have the same hopes – or not?

Obviously, we cannot get all the lifetime prosperity, harmony, and affection which people wished for us so that the New Year would be a Happy New Year. But could we, maybe, foresee and say more – not for us as individuals, but for the society were we live?

The last couple of days provided two strong indications about that – but of a contradicting nature.

A paper reported that the president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court had said – though without using these words – that we do live in a society which is not governed by the law.

Quite a strong statement - because the Phnom Penh Municipal Court court “lacked judges for hearing 6,500 cases in 2008. Being unable to solve many cases like that, makes that hundreds of accused persons are detained beyond the legal limit, which states that the detention of an accused or of a suspect can be up to a maximum of six months. Then they have to be brought to court for a hearing, and if the court cannot find them to be guilty, they must be released immediately. However, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and Khmer courts in different provinces do not abide by this legal procedure, and continue to detain thousands of people for many years without conviction, which is against legal procedure and seriously violates the rights of the accused.” By the end of 2007, there had even been 9,200 such unsolved cases.

Not some uninformed and ill-intended observers said this, but the president of the Phnom Penh Municipal court.

And the future?

The president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court “acknowledged that Khmer courts are not yet quite in good order; therefore all Khmer courts need many more years to improve.”

The Court Watch Bulletins of the Center for Social Development describe what the accused – guilty or not – will have to endure for years to come (according to the time line given by the president of the Municipal Court): “The municipal court conducted hearings for three criminal cases every day, and half of those hearings lasted only not more than 20 minutes. So the period for hearing each case was very short, just enough to read the verdicts by which the court defined punishments, or defined who were the losers and the winners in a conflict. The result is that each case is not clearly analyzed according to the procedures of the law, and according to the facts. Therefore it is seen that frequently the rich and high ranking officials won cases against poor people, and against people who are not powerful in society.”

The president of the Municipal Court states now that one of the reasons for these regular violations of the law is a lack of staff at the courts: there are not enough judges and not enough prosecutors! There is no reason to doubt this. But we do not remember to have seen, in the press over the years, that the leadership of the courts, the leadership of the Ministry of Justice, the leadership of the government as a whole – responsible in different ways to upheld a state of law - has decried this situation, leading to regular gross violations of basic rights of citizens according to Cambodian laws, and initiated urgent efforts to rectify this situation.

The situation has an even worse aspect, when one considers that Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng was quoted to have acknowledges that there is corruption among high ranking police officers.

But is all his going to be rectified - not immediately, but consistently, and step by step, without unnecessary delay?-The Supreme Court Released Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun on 31 December 2008 on bail - they had been arrested on 28 January 2004 and were convicted to serve 20 years in prison by the Phnom Penh court, for killing the labor union leader Mr. Chea Vichea on 22 January 2004.

But the president of the Supreme Court explained now that the present decision – to release them on bail - was made because the murder of the former president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia needs further investigation, as there were gaps in the procedures, and there is insufficient evidence.

This decision was widely welcomed – as it initiates a reconsideration not only of what really happened five years ago, but it will also be necessary to clarify:

- What went wrong with the investigation of the police, and why?

- What went wrong at the initial court procedures, when evidence offered by the defense was disregarded, and why?

What went wrong when the Appeals Court on 12 April 2007 upheld the convictions of Born Samnang and of Sok Samoeun, in spite of many indications raised in the international and national public – including by the former King – that the initial process was flawed, and why was there no new investigation ordered by the Appeals Court?

There is hope that the present decision of the Supreme Court will lead to justice for the two persons who spent already five years in prison.

But tis is only one side of the problem. The Supreme Court created an opportunity like never before, to go into detail, to clarify what went wrong and why, and who may have to take responsibility for what went wrong, and bear the consequences according to the law.

Not a revision of old, or the promulgation of new legal procedure will make Cambodia a state under the law – only the strict application of the law will help to bring change.

There was never a better chance for this than since the recent decision by the Supreme Court.

A Filipino farmer plows a field using a water buffalo in Negros Oriental province in the central Philippines. Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a "land grab" that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.(AFP/File/Romeo Gacad)

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a "land grab" that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.

Global trends including high prices for oil and commodities, the biofuels boom, and now the sweeping downturn, are spurring import-reliant countries to take action to protect their sources of food.

China and South Korea, which are both short on arable land, and Middle Eastern nations flush with petrodollars, are driving the trend to sign up rights to swathes of territory in Asia and Africa.

"Today's food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab," the Spain-based agricultural rights group Grain said in a recent report.

It said that some deals were targeted at boosting food security by producing crops that would be sent back home for consumption, while others were to establish money-making plantations like palm oil and rubber.

"As a result of both trends, fertile agricultural land is being swiftly privatised and consolidated by foreign companies in some ofthe world's poorest and hungriest countries," it said.

In one of the biggest deals, South Korea's Daewoo Logistics said in November it would invest about 6.0 billion dollars to develop 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in Madagascar -- almost half the size of Belgium.

Daewoo plans to produce four million tonnes of corn and 500,000 tonnes of palm oil a year, most of which will be shipped out of impoverished Madagascar -- where the World Food Programme still provides food relief.

"We will build everything from ports and railways to markets on a barren and untouched area," said Shin Dong-Hyun, general manager of the WFP's financing and strategic planning department.

Although commodity prices have fallen from their highs earlier this year, resource-poor and heavily populated countries are still concerned about securing long-term supplies.

Walden Bello, from Bangkok-based advocacy group Focus on the Global South, said the looming global recession is not likely to halt the trend which he fears will worsen the lot of landless peasants.

"In a situation where global agricultural production has become so volatile and unpredictable, I would not be surprised if the Middle Eastern countries that are engaged in this would continue to push on," he told AFP.

Bello said that many of the deals were struck in dysfunctional and corruption-ridden nations, and rejected claims the land being signed away is of poor quality, and that the projects will bring jobs and improve infrastructure.

"What we're talking about is private parties using state contracts to enrich themselves," he said. "It's an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations."

In Cambodia, where the WFP also supplies aid, oil-rich Kuwait in August granted a 546-million-dollar loan in return for crop production.

Undersecretary of State Suos Yara said Cambodia was also in talks with Qatar, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia over agricultural investments including land concessions.

"If we do this work successfully, we can get at least 3.0 billion dollars from these agricultural investments," he said.

"With the (global financial) crisis, this is a chance for Cambodia to look to the future by pushing agriculture in order to attract foreign investments."

But opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said he was suspicious about why a wealthy nation like Kuwait needed to lease land to grow rice rather then just import the grain.

"Cambodian farmers need the land," he said, urging the government to limit the area under lease and ensure Cambodia was not plundered by foreign nations.

In the Philippines, another land lease hotspot, a series of high-profile deals has clashed with long-running demands for agrarian reform including land redistribution.

"It will aggravate the problem of landlessness, the insufficiency of land for Filipino peasants," said Congressman Rafael Mariano, who also heads the Peasants' Movement of the Philippines (KMP).

However the Philippine government is undeterred and during President Gloria Arroyo's visit to Qatar in December, officials opened talks over the lease of at least 100,000 hectares of agricultural land to the emirate.

Bello said he expected these sorts of deals to increase, forcing peasants from rural areas and into cities where together with the global downturn they will add to the ranks of the unemployed.

"It's particularly explosive in those countries where you have a high degree of landlessness, like the Philippines where seven out of 10 rural people do not have access to land," he said.

In the impoverished and corrupt dictatorship of Laos, some experts estimate that between two million and three million hectares have been parcelled off in a rampant and uncontrolled process that has now been suspended by the government.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has sounded alarm over the loss of land in a country where in rural areas, every second child is malnourished and access to land for foraging of natural resources is critical.

"If the environment is changed, with the trees cut and replaced with industrial crops," said FAO representative in Laos, Serge Verniau, "they can face serious danger".

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Two years after a big decline in the number of confirmed human deaths from H5N1 bird flu, cases are still turning up in poultry, U.N. health officials say.

The virus has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years and has also turned up in four human patients in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. New poultry outbreaks were also observed in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China.

Fewer countries overall, however, are reporting outbreaks among poultry. The Times cited an October United Nations report crediting improvements in the last few years to stepped-up surveillance and rapid culling of potentially infected poultry.

Even with the gains, the bird flu virus has continued to "at the very least smolder, and many times flare up" since a chain of outbreaks began in 2003, Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota told the newspaper.

"What alarms me is that we have developed a sense of pandemic-preparedness fatigue," he said.

SIEM REAP (Cambodia): Thailand's new foreign minister held talks with his Cambodian counterpart on Monday to defuse a row over a 900-year-old temple that has raised fears of a military clash between the southeast Asian neighbours.

Career diplomat Tej Bunnag, who was appointed at the weekend after the resignation of his predecessor over the Preah Vihear spat, declined to talk to reporters as he entered the meeting with Cambodia's Hor Namhong in the tourist town of Siem Reap.

The Cambodian side was also keeping quiet before the talks, which are not expected to yield any major breakthrough, although a landslide victory in Sunday's election by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) may give Phnom Penh scope to calm tensions.

The CPP, led by wily former Khmer Rouge soldier Hun Sen for the last 23 years, claimed to have won 90 of 123 seats in parliament, meaning it may be able to rule alone for the first time since elections organised by the United Nations in 1993.

The dispute with Thailand centres on 1.8 square miles (4.6 square km) of scrubland near the ancient Hindu temple, which sits on the jungle-clad escarpment that forms the natural boundary between the two countries.

The International Court of Justice awarded the ruins to Cambodia in 1962 in a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since. The court did not rule on the disputed bits of land lying nearby.

With troops and artillery building up on both sides of the border, Cambodia has threatened to take the spat to the U.N. Security Council. Thailand wants all talks with its smaller neighbour to remain strictly two-way.

"Attempts to bring the bilateral issue to broader frameworks at this stage could complicate the situation and in turn, produce undesirable repercussions on the good relations and goodwill," Tej said in a statement on Sunday.

The talks -- the second attempt to resolve the dispute through dialogue -- are expected to run until 4.30 pm (0930 GMT).

Negotiations a week ago between top military officials quickly descended into an argument over which of several maps drawn up in the last 100 years should be used to settle ownership of the temple and its surroundings.

General Chea Mon, a Cambodian commander at the temple, said both he and Thai officers had ordered a halt to the digging of trenches and bunkers for the duration of the talks, but made clear that any pull-back was out of the question.

"We are still in a military stand-off," he told Reuters.

The dispute flared when street protesters in Bangkok trying to oust the Thai government seized on its approval of Phnom Penh's bid to list the ruins as a World Heritage site.

The election campaign in Cambodia ensured the row quickly escalated. With that now over, the hope is that Phnom Penh will tone down the rhetoric and move towards some understanding with Thailand.

However, there is still a risk of the row taking on a life of its own, with ordinary Cambodians organising collections of cash, food and clothing in the capital to send to troops on the border.

Monks will chant at the Genocide Museum and “killing fields” throughout Cambodia on January 7 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of Pol Pot’s horrific regime – one of history’s worst.

Dictator Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime killed an estimated 1.7 million people – more than one-fifth of Cambodia’s population -- in the late 1970’s. They were either murdered outright, or died from forced labor and starvation.

At the most notorious killing field, Choeung Ek , 8,000 skulls are stacked up in the former orchard just a few miles from Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. Even the glorious Angkor Wat temple was used as a killing field.

Cambodia’s deadliest prison, then called S-21, is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The 290 skulls on display there used to be arranged in the shape of Cambodia. The walls of the former high school are papered with head shots of the 14,000 prisoners tortured there daily by the Khmer Rouge. These photos can be ordered, if you really want, as wallpaper for your computer.

Although one of history’s worst mass killers, Pol Pot never faced trial and died peacefully in his sleep at age 73. “Pol Pot” was one of 10 aliases for Saloth Sar, a former schoolteacher . “The more often you change your name the better. It confuses the enemy,” he once said, according to “Pol Pot: Anatomy of A Nightmare” by Philip Short ((Henry Holt and Company).

Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are languishing in a Cambodian-United Nations detention center -- whose food they’ve complained about. Their long-planned trial is still not in sight, and the detainees, in their 70s and 80s, may well die peacefully before facing justice.

Recently, I realized a life-long dream to visit Cambodia. I asked my extraordinarily knowledgeable guide, Phalla Chan, how he had managed to survive those years. “I guess I’m strong,” he replied. “Today is for today, not for thinking about yesterday.”

I immersed myself in Cambodia’s tragedies of yesterday, converted into today’s tourist attractions described above. The killing fields and museums affected me as deeply as Holocaust museums in Washington and in my hometown of Houston; Robben Island prison off Cape Town, South Africa where Nelson Mandela was held for 27 years in a three-square-yard cell; the Spanish Inquisition Museum in Lima, Peru; among many others.

PHNOM PENH: Barack Obama's presidency marks a triumph over the legacy of slavery, so it would be particularly meaningful if he led a new abolitionist movement against 21st-century slavery - like the trafficking of girls into brothels.

Anyone who thinks it is hyperbole to describe sex trafficking as slavery should look at the maimed face of a teenage girl, Long Pross.

Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.

Yes, I know it's hard to read this. But it's infinitely more painful for Pross to recount the humiliations she suffered, yet she summoned the strength to do so - and to appear in a video posted online with this column - because she wants people to understand how brutal sex trafficking can be.

Pross was 13 and hadn't even had her first period when a young woman kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh. The brothel owner, a woman as is typical, beat Pross and tortured her with electric current until finally the girl acquiesced.

She was kept locked deep inside the brothel, her hands tied behind her back at all times except when with customers.

Brothel owners can charge large sums for sex with a virgin, and like many girls, Pross was painfully stitched up so she could be resold as a virgin. In all, the brothel owner sold her virginity four times.

Pross paid savagely each time she let a potential customer slip away after looking her over."I was beaten every day, sometimes two or three times a day," she said, adding that she was sometimes also subjected to electric shocks twice in the same day.

The business model of forced prostitution is remarkably similar from Pakistan to Vietnam - and, sometimes, in the United States as well. Pimps use violence, humiliation and narcotics to shatter girls' self-esteem and terrorize them into unquestioning, instantaneous obedience.

One girl working with Pross was beaten to death after she tried to escape.

The brothels figure that occasional losses to torture are more than made up by the increased productivity of the remaining inventory.

After my last column, I heard from skeptical readers doubting that conditions are truly so abusive. It's true that prostitutes work voluntarily in many brothels in Cambodia and elsewhere. But there are also many brothels where teenage girls are slave laborers.

Young girls and foreigners without legal papers are particularly vulnerable. In Thailand's brothels, for example, Thai girls usually work voluntarily, while Burmese and Cambodian girls are regularly imprisoned.

The career trajectory is often for a girl in her early teens to be trafficked into prostitution by force, but eventually to resign herself and stay in the brothel even when she is given the freedom to leave. In my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, I respond to the skeptics and offer some ideas for readers who want to help.

Pross herself was never paid, and she had no right to insist on condoms (she has not yet been tested for HIV, because the results might be too much for her fragile emotional state). Twice she became pregnant and was subjected to crude abortions.

The second abortion left Pross in great pain, and she pleaded with her owner for time to recuperate. "I was begging, hanging on to her feet, and asking for rest," Pross remembered. "She got mad."

That's when the woman gouged out Pross' right eye with a piece of metal. At that point in telling her story, Pross broke down and we had to suspend the interview.

Pross' eye grew infected and monstrous, spraying blood and pus on customers, she later recounted. The owner discarded her, and she is now recuperating with the help of Sina Vann, the young woman I wrote about in my last column.

Sina was herself rescued by Somaly Mam, a trafficking survivor who started the Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia to fight sexual slavery.

The foundation is working with Dr. Jim Gollogly of the Children's Surgical Center in Cambodia to get Pross a glass eye.

"A year from now, she should look pretty good," said Gollogly, who is providing her with free medical care.

So Somaly saved Sina, and now Sina is saving Pross. Someday, perhaps Pross will help another survivor, if the rest of us can help sustain them.

The Obama administration will have a new tool to fight traffickers: the Wilberforce Act, just passed by Congress, which strengthens sanctions on countries that wink at sex slavery. Much will depend on whether Obama and Hillary Clinton see trafficking as a priority.

There would be powerful symbolism in an African-American president reminding the world that the war on slavery isn't yet over, and helping lead the 21st-century abolitionist movement.

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia received less foreign tourists in 2008 than expected due to the global financial crisis and the instability in neighboring Thailand, national media said on Sunday.

The total number of foreign tourist arrivals in the kingdom in 2008 stood at 2.15 million or so, a 6 percent rise over 2007, but much less than the expected 15 percent to 20 percent, Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial News quoted Tourism Minister Thon Khong as saying.

Around 33 percent of them came to Cambodia through Thailand and29 percent through another neighboring country Vietnam, the minister said.

In 2008, top 5 providers of foreign tourists for Cambodia were South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, the United States and China, he added.

Tourism is among the pillar industries of the kingdom, as its Angkor Wat in Siem Reap province and the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh municipality keep on attracting foreign visitors to watch the miracles of the Khmer nationality.